Susan Pourfar on the Cultural Resonance ‘Meet the Cartozians’

We speak with actress Susan Pourfar of Meet the Cartozians, currently playing at New York City’s Second Stage Theater until December 14.

The Armenian experience portrayed in Meet the Cartozians, currently playing on New York’s Second Stage Theater, has great resonance for Armenians and non-Armenians alike. This includes, of course, its non-Armenian cast members who are still West Asian and share many similar experiences in diaspora. Iranian American Susan Pourfar, who like the rest of the cast plays dual roles in the play, found strong similarities with the narrative and characters playwright Talene Monahon had constructed, fortifying her portrayal of Armenians in America.

We spoke to Pourfar about how the play came to her, how she was convinced to take the role, the process of learning to portray an Armenian Genocide survivor, and how specifically she resonated with the Monahon’s characters. Pourfar also reflected deeply on what the play has to say about the American experience today, stemming from her own experiences as an Iranian-American and those of the wider SWANA community.

Actors in play "Meet the Cartozians" — (Right to left) Will Brill, Susan Pourfar, Andrea Martin, Raffi Barsoumian, and Nael Nacer in Talene Monahon’s play “Meet the Cartozians” at NYC’s Second Stage Theater

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

NOC: How did you first come across the script and audition for the play?

Pourfar: Oh, that’s a great question. I had a prior relationship with both the director, David Cromer, and one of the cast members, Will Brill. We had done a play together many years ago called Tribes, so I’ve known them like 13 years, and this play came along. I guess they were doing a lot of readings and workshops of it, and I wasn’t able to participate in all of them, but they did invite me to come come into the room and read it for the artistic staff of Second Stage. And Second Stage already had decided to produce the play, but it hadn’t yet been announced. So I kind of had a sense they were committed to the play, but it was still somewhat in progress, and it wasn’t cast yet. But I definitely had a sense of that reading like “Oh, if I’m here in the room, then clearly, there’s the potential that I could work on this with this creative team, and I’d be excited to,” but also, they never really owe you a job. You kind of just go and say, “Whatever happens, happens.” And so I participated in that, and then, a lot of months went by. I think they did some more workshops, some more rewrites, some more readings. And then I think sometime over the summer, I got a call from my agent saying, “They really think that you’d be a good fit for the part.” And of course, I was in a panic. I don’t know I’m gonna be able to do it justice? And they said “Well, do you want to get on the phone and talk to David and hear what he’s thinking?” And he convinced me. I was like, “What do I do?” I’m writing, doing yoga poses, but I’m also looking at poetry and first person accounts and historical accounts and don’t think I’ll ever stop doing that, because I want to do a service to what Talene has written. And then I also have, a little prayer from someone, which is “Use me, but also forgive me, because clearly I wasn’t there, and I can’t know exactly what this is, but, forgive my, my flaw in representation, but also, please, use me to represent as best as I can.” What that must have been for someone who, survived it and also, frankly, probably feels a lot of guilt for all the people that were left behind.

Yeah, it’s very real. It’s very real in Act II as Leslie, relatively lighter, but still steeped into that trauma as your character, you speak on a range of topics affecting the Armenian community in America. So what did you find in common with this experience being of Iranian descent, yourself?

Oh, my god, 100% I was before I knew I was doing a play. I was actually talking with Will, who’s a good friend, and I was being asked to audition for a Middle Eastern woman on a show. And I called my agents, and I was like, “Guys, I 100% would love to do it.” And yet there’s something really weird about me taking this part. If I were to get it, and I don’t even think I would get it, I didn’t get it because I’m essentially a Middle Eastern yet white passing, so whereas Leslie is infuriated that she’s not allowed to be sort of counted and included, because of how people experience, in terms of both maybe how she looks and maybe, among some other things. But I think I have an understanding that, to some degree, my lived experience is different from the lived experience of someone who is constantly daily perceived as Middle Eastern, and that’s the person who should probably get the part so but I have a really kind of strange relationship. I feel strongly culturally Iranian, but I also don’t feel that I totally have a right to claim that identity as a way to get let’s say, roles or privileges. I never had the opportunity. I never knew what box to check, to be honest. And this is really complicated for me too, because my dad comes from a generation that believes that Iranians are “white.” I was like, “Dad, this is terrific. One day we can check, we can finally check Iranian or Middle Eastern,” and he, believe it or not, was “Well, but we’re white, right?” And believe me, that is not my dad’s lived experience, but somehow it’s what he believes as the category of his that he should be, that should be assigned to, to him and his cohort. He came over before pre-revolution, and now I’m going to date myself and say that we were as children in Iran during the Iranian hostage crisis. And I still remember this feel, this, this feeling of, I’m not recognizably Iranian here in Iran, and I will come back from this experience to my my school and , I will not be recognizably white. There I will be. I just I’m not, I’m I’m neither, in a way, I’m not. I’m never going to be the recognizably, I’m not legible fully in either space, but I’m also not complaining about that. I’m just interested in what that has meant for me as a person growing up in America. But yeah, I’ve definitely experienced a lot of fear and anxiety around all of the wars. I was in a panic. I was just “oh my god, they like my because that was during one of the wars where, where all of this stuff, where, the Middle East is just lumped into one, one kind of remote foreign terrorist organization, always been, a source of real terror for me and for my dad, who is like, as a matter of fact, like, does get questioned at the airport, has had the FBI knock on his door. Like literally had all the experiences that are talked about in the play where it’s your lived experience is not a white person, and yet that is the box that you check. It’s fascinating.

It really is. And I think the play explores that amazingly well. You’ve certainly touched upon it. What do you think that you learned about the more about the Armenian experience through playing this role?

Oh, yeah. Well, I learned a tiny bit of the Armenian language. Keep my as my character says, a little “keechma.” And then I learned, I mean, actually,. This is entirely to Talene’s creation, but I will say I was like, the one thing that I am always have handy to say in Farsi is, I speak a little bit because it is a way to like, let people know that you are one of them, and yet that you are like. Like limited in your ability, but it’s an great it’s a way to ingratiate yourself. I think if you can say, “I speak a little bit in almost any language, ingratiate yourself to the person from that place.” We can all say, because we live in New York. But so I teach my little bit, but I also learned, I mean, honestly, I knew almost nothing. To be honest, the only thing I knew was that, when I was in college, our college president, what is his past since? But he was Armenian, Vartan Gregorian, and I am, thanks to a connection through like my husband’s work. I just got I figured out that he is left behind a beautiful autobiography, and it is an incredible legacy. So I also have that backstage, and I’m reading that as we as I’m progressing through that I’m like in his college years right now in Beirut, Lebanon. But I knew that he was an incredible human being, and I loved him so much. But I didn’t know about, like, the diaspora and the genocide and like,. I didn’t know why or what that journey had been until now, I’m embarrassed to say.

I mean, you know, it’s all about a growth mindset and learning for all of us.

Actually! My favorite part of my profession is so many things. I could have never been exposed to this, and thank God I have been.

Absolutely. So how do you feel the response has been so far to the play?

I think it’s been good. I think it’s growing. I think it’s growing as we grow into it and gain our sense of the story that we’re telling and our confidence that we’re we’re doing it justice. Honestly, previews are always a little bit step forward, step back, sometimes even step forward to step back. And then, you get to that a few days before press starts coming, and they do something where they lock it down, or they freeze it. And you’re kind of in a panic, because you’re. This is my last chance to, ask for anything that I need, or change anything or have anything. But then once, now that it’s kind of set, we can really just, release our tension and breathe into it and live in it. And I’m really, I’m learning how to do that, because up until now, it’s been the process of working on a new play is change. Yeah, so I’m breathing into it a little bit. And finding where we can relax and where we can, speed up or slow down or and that it’s all about in service of Talene’s script and telling the story. And now we know what the story is.

Yeah, absolutely. I will actually just give you a note about act one you should change nothing about your performance. It was absolutely perfect. Honestly, in act two as well, you’re overall fantastic. So what do you hope? What do you most hope audiences take from the play?

The whole reason I wanted to do that play because, again, as an actor, am I gonna be able to do this? There’s a lot of insecurity. Every time you take out a new job, you’re starting from ground zero. I’m 99.9% sure is true about this play, and it has turned out to be 100% true. It sparks conversation, and I want people to leave having those conversations about, race and identity and America, and assimilation and and one big thing that I experienced listening to the show is that, assimilation is this, really heartbreaking double edged sword. You you gain something, and then you lose things and you lose things in order to like, secure your child’s future or your safety or your acceptance. But a lot of what gets lost in Act I out of fear and compromise. I think some of the characters in act two are desperately trying to like, claw their rate where way back toward, that sense of cultural identity. It’s important that recognizes the specifics of Armenian art, dance, and food.